What's Out Wednesday!

The Sensory Tub has river stones and some fun containers and tongs.

We got a new Abuccus from Ikea!

On the special table we have a water transfer activity. The child uses a dropper to transfer the colored water to the vase. Once they have transferred all of the water they then pour the vase of water back and use the little pink towel to clean up any spills. This has been a very popular activity!

This next activity is out on the shelf. The box has matching stones and a magnifying glass. Match the stones and sort them in the tray and then study the differences with the magnifying glass.

Lion and Whale erasers for making a pattern, LOL This has hardly been touched!

Jack's shelf(actually it's used by all of the kids) has: One inch stacking cubes, pom pom bottle, nesting cups, metal tin with clips, stacking rings, and two puzzles.

Pom Pom Bottle

Jack really liked this and it was so cheap and easy to make. It's a two liter bottle with no lid. I cut a square at the bottom and lined it with tape so that he could retrieve the pom poms after he puts them in the top. Fun. Cheap. Easy.

ABC Bingo

In one of the work books we have there were these 2 alphabet sheets. One is uppercase and the other is lowercase. I mounted them on construction paper and then Laminated them.

We played sound bingo. I would say the letter sounds and they would place a stone on the right letter. In this picture Drake was stumped and Caden was helping him out! I love these boys!!!!!

What's Out Wednesday!

From top left; Crayons, markers, crayon rocks, paper, playdoh and tools, Dry erase markers and workbooks. Second shelf, bob book that Caden has passed off, puzzles, sorting tray with colored stones, pattern tray with colored balls, tonging cylinders and the nut and bolt activity. Third shelf; Geometric solids, triangles and squares, color mixing paddles, dollar store ring toss game, magnetic marble toy, legos, and connecting builders.
On our special table we have a hammer the nails activity. You place the shape where you want it on the cork and then hammer a nail down the center. Big Hit.

We have out construction vehicles in the block area.

Our sensory tub it filled with 1 pound of rainbow pony beads, dollar store glass squares, heart and star links, 2 treasure chests, 1 glass candle holder and 2 scoops. This has been a huge hit! The kids love sorting out the "treasures". The picture doesn't do it justice! It is really so pretty that I can't help play with it!

Jack's shelf from the top; shape sorting peg puzzle, Golf tee peg board, nesting cups, stacking rings, vehicle puzzle and shape sorter.

My sister made this golf tee peg board by drilling holes in a little piece of wood. Jack Loves taking the golf Tees in and out.

On our white board we have dinosaurs! I wasn't sure what activity we would do with these but the boys started to pretend they were flying and eating each other. I thought that was pretty cool and then Caden brought me over to tell me that he had sorted them. I looked and he told me that he had sorted them by the ones that fly in the sky, the ones that walk on land and the ones that swim in the water:) I thought it was pretty cool:)

What's Out Wednesday!

Again, I'm only going to post about what is out that I changed! The kids have been loving the school room and certain things (legos, blocks, art supplies ext.) will almost always be out!

My sister let us borrow this puzzle again! It is magnetic.

I put out a little card writing activity. There are cards, envelopes and cards with words on them to copy.

The sorting tray is so popular and the kids love when they see something new in it! I love using the same tray because it makes it really easy on me and they already know the rules and how to use it even when I put out something new!

This egg tray was a little goodwill gift from my sister because she knows I've been wanting one! This tray is for making patterns and I hope to have it out all the time and just switch out the objects in the middle. This will be a lot like the sorting tray:)

Our new sensory item is pom pom balls and they are a hit! I included some containers, scoops, tongs, and a little yellow tube for stuffing as many pom poms as you can:) The kids love filling the tube up and watching them pop out the end as they put more in:)

Nuts and Bolts

I went to the hardware store and picked up 5 different sized nuts and bolts for a fun fine motor activity. I found the perfect little tray at the dollar tree. Nuts are on one side and bolts on the other and as they complete them they put them in the middle. Caden also likes to put them in order by size.

White Board Activity- Sorting Colors

I love my white board that I got at Costco! My sister cut and laminated these little pictures and color words from a workbook. I cut them apart and put a little magnet on the back of each picture. I used the document clip at the top of the board(You can also turn it over and it turns into a marker holder!) to clip in the color words. Caden and Drake loved this! They took all the little pictures and lined them up under the correct color word. It was great for color recognition but also a step into learning to graph!

I turned the board again so that they could graph in a different way and they also loved it. I don't have a picture but I turned it one more time so that the words were on the bottom and they graphed the pictures up.
I plan on doing this again and also coming up with some more activities for this awesome white board!

Small Group

Small group is what we called it when I was a teacher. It was the time where we would split the kids into two groups and would do a teacher led activity together. I recently started doing a little pre-school program in my home and we have 26 days to fill this Summer so I couldn't resist doing a letter of the day!

Our letter A small group was stickers and a letter Aa sheet to stick them on.

Letter B was blue play dough with letter B cutters(bunny, bone, bear, bell, ext.)

C was Colors! We mixed colored water and then put the glasses in rainbow order! The kids LOVED this!

D was counting Dogs and then Dinosaurs with our counting mats.
For the Letter E I filled a cookie sheet with letter E things and then covered it with a cloth. I would take away one thing and the kids would guess what I took away. We will do this again because it was very challenging for them! Oh and we named the little boy Ed and the wood box was Empty:)

I'm not a big letter theme crafty person but the children have been loving the letter of the day! Caden has been talking about the letters of the day non stop and he's know all of his letters for over a year and a half! I'll post more small groups in a week or so:)

Q & A

A reader asked what I do about the little guys not eating all of the little parts of activities the older kids are working on?



I am very lucky with Jack(14 m) because he is not a very mouthy baby and never has been but Drake was! I would try to teach them not to put it in their mouth first by stopping them 2 or 3 times and then removing the activity. If they just aren't getting it(most babies won't) then here are some ideas that I have used and heard.



-Nap Time! Do school activities with the older child during the babies nap time.

-Kitchen Table. It's high enough that babies can't reach and you could strap them into their high chair with a safe activity or snack.

-Put the older child in a play pen with an activity so that the baby can't get to them(Caden LOVED this).

-We put Jack in a hook on chair in the school room so that he can work along side us without getting to the choke and breakables:)



Hope this helps:)

(In this picture Jack is putting dimes in a jar through the slit on the top. He loved and tried to put a dime in his mouth one time. I stopped him and said no eating and that was it. He loves activities like this!)

What's Out Wednesday!

I didn't change much this week because everyone has been so engaged with everything that I didn't want to change any of it:) The block area has a second shelf now that hold our unit blocks that Grandpa Drake bought for us! We have the cars(red basket) out with them right now.

Caden LOVES the new blocks and plays with them several time a day!!!
I also moved the sensory tub to the block area shelf because it was hard for the kids to get off of the shelf and get to the table. Now they just slide it off the bottom shelf and on to the floor. Right now we have beans, construction vehicles, and two scoops. This has been a huge hit!

On the Table Shelf we have New Play dough and enough rollers and cutters(there are lots you can't see in the pic) for several children to play together instead of just one. The rollers are actually blocks that came with the unit blocks:)

Transferring pom poms with tongs.

I originally had planned not to let Jack(14 months) into the school room yet but he wanted it so bad and did sooooooo good that I put together a shelf for him. From top Left: Metal tin and magnets, bottle with water and stones, treasure box with pom pom inside, nesting cups, little books, shape puzzle, shape sorter, vehicle puzzle with big knobs. He loves being apart of the school action and I can't wait to come up with new things for his shelf!

On the white board we have magnetic shapes.

I also put up a rain gutter book shelf to display some of our reference books that we like to pull down. It's out of their reach because they are delicate and some are expensive books.

Help Please!

I have a confession:) I'm a file folder game virgin:) I recently read a fun post on Confession of a Homeschooler! Love her blog!!!! I have printed several off and now that it's time to put them together, I'm nervous! Here's where I would like your help! If you "More experienced" mommies would leave a comment and give me your best tips on assembly that would be MUCH appreciated!
Some questions I have,
What kind of glue do you use?
Do you Laminate?
I want it to last for a long time so I can pass it on to siblings down the line.
How do you organize them?

When I've gotten enough comments and tried it out I will do a post about it to share with any of you who also might not have tried it yet:)

Shapes Bingo

I found this game at the Dollar Tree. I laminated the game boards but not the little cards. We started out playing together but Drake was done quite fast and Caden wanted to do both of them on his own:)
He used stones as markers and pulled the cards one at a time and then would find the right color and shape. Love it! And it was just a dollar!

What's Out Wednesday!

The School Room is Done!!!! Here are some over view shots!

So we have our white board that I got at Costco and LOVE. Right now we have our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree and letters.

This is our main shelf that has everything you would use at the table. Top shelf is Art and writing center. Middle shelf is books puzzles and tray activities. Bottom shelf is table toys and the sensory tub.

Closer look at the Art Shelf. We have Crayon Rocks, crayons, markers, glue sticks, scissors, cutting paper, regular paper, and play-doh.

Closer look at the writing center. We have pencils and pens, little blank books, writing manuscript booklet, dry erase basket and workbooks.

This is the Block Area. Grandpa Drake just order us some wood unit blocks to be adding here soon! Thanks Grandpa!!! For now we have our United States puzzle, American Flags, CD Player, Dollar store puzzles with hammer, 1 inch stacking cubes, Disney Pixar figures, Large Solar System Puzzle, word puzzles, number puzzles, and Lincoln Logs.

This is like a special activity table. It's where I will put out things that I don't want to be moved. Right now I have out a gallon sized Ziploc bag with black paint in it. I taped colored strips of paper down on the table first and it has a really cool effect!